‘Supergirl’ 2.16 Recap: “Do What’s Best for Him”

Well, it had to happen. We’d eventually get an episode of ‘Supergirl’ where not much of significance happens. This is an entry where you could tune in for the final ten minutes and not miss a whole lot of anything. I enjoyed the last bit, but the majority of the story isn’t very interesting.

Things open this week with Mon-El and Kara watching an episode of ‘Game of Thrones’. Mon-El suggests watching a musical next, which is a not-so-subtle hint about what’s coming for Supergirl at the end of this episode. Suddenly, an announcement interrupts the television broadcast. It’s from the large spaceship we saw at the end of the last episode. The two alien leaders want Mon-El’s “captors” to turn him over by dawn.

While out on a date, Lyra convinces Winn to break into the National City Art Museum after hours with the promise of hot museum sex inside. The next day, however, Winn finds himself at the police station being question by Maggie. Vincent van Gogh’s famous Starry Night painting has been stolen, and surveillance video makes it looks like Winn was responsible. Lyra doesn’t show up at all on camera. Winn soon realizes that Lyra double-crossed him. With the help of Alex and Jimmy (who continues to serve no meaningful purpose on the series this season), Maggie gives Winn 24 hours to clear his name.

Meanwhile, Supergirl flies off to see if she can contact the alien spaceship, but is greeted by a number of attacks. Not wanting Kara to get hurt, Mon-El agrees to turn himself over. When the ship starts to beam him up, Kara hugs Mon-El so she’ll go with him. Once aboard, we learn that the two aliens are King Lar Gand and Queen Rhea (Kevin Sorbo and Teri Hatcher). They’ve been looking for Mon-El because he’s actually their son and a prince of Daxam, not just a palace guard like he told Kara.

Mon-El and Kara stay for dinner, and Kara finally learns the true story of Mon-El’s flight from his homeworld, which was far from heroic. It turns out that his aide shot and killed a Kryptonian in order to steal a pod so Mon-El could escape the planet.

Winn tracks down Lyra in a trailer park. She admits that she used him in order to steal the painting. After both Guardian and Alex show up to arrest her, they have to fight off a couple of guys with laser guns, who eventually speed away in a car, leaving Lyra behind. After being taken to a cell at the DEO, Lyra claims that the real reason she stole the painting was to trade it for her kidnapped brother’s life. When Winn takes this story to J’onn, he thinks Lyra may be conning Winn a second time. Of course, that doesn’t stop Winn from freeing Lyra and taking her to the scheduled exchange.

Kara is mad at Mon-El for not telling her the truth about who he is or how he escaped from Daxam. Queen Rhea asks Kara to help her convince Mon-El that he needs to return to his homeworld to both lead and help rebuild the planet. Kara agrees to talk to him, but doesn’t make a whole lot of effort trying to convince him to leave. She’s still quite upset with him, though.

Winn and Lyra arrive at a warehouse to exchange the painting for her brother. An alien named Mandrax shows up to take the painting, which he quickly identifies as a fake and rips in half. Fortunately, Winn has a few more tricks up his sleeve. First Guardian, and then Alex and a DEO team, arrive to save the day. Lyra gets reunited with her brother, and Winn avoids any possible charges from Maggie and the police. However, it appears that Lyra and Winn may be finished as a couple when she says that she and her brother are leaving town.

Sing Sing Sing

The majority of this episode has been rather pointless, but we get a really nice scene toward the end where Mon-El spills his guts to Kara about his past and admits to being a horrible person when he was on Daxam. Then he tells her how much he loves her. Mon-El is even honest when Kara asks him if he would have ever told her the truth on his own, and he confesses that he’s not sure. After he bares his soul to her, Kara tells him it’s over and shows him the door. Despite being rejected by the woman he loves, Mon-El goes to his parents and informs them that he’s staying on Earth. Surprisingly, his father agrees. Does that mean his parents are leaving or is dad up to something? We’ll have to wait and see if these two appear in any more episodes this seasons.

In the final scene, everyone returns to the DEO and J’onn announces that they’re making a prisoner transfer. Although I don’t think this episode reveals his name, it’s the Music Meister (played by ‘Glee’ alum Darren Criss). He does something goofy with his eyes toward Supergirl, whose eyes return the same odd pattern. He then gets free and jumps through a dimensional portal saying he’s got a date with the world’s fastest man. When he’s gone, Supergirl passes out, only to awaken in what looks like a 1940s nightclub where she’s ushered out on stage to perform a musical number. Of course, we don’t get to see her sing. The story will be continued on Tuesday night’s episode of ‘The Flash’.

Episode Verdict

I confess to getting excited for this week’s episode, thinking it would be the first half of a two-part musical crossover. I realized very quickly that the Music Meister wouldn’t appear until the end of the episode, but still hoped for at least one musical number tonight. Nope. This episode just turns into a big tease for ‘The Flash’. You’d think The CW execs would like to drive more viewers toward ‘Supergirl’ than toward ‘The Flash’ (which, I believe, is the network’s highest rated show), but this is the way they chose to do things.

As for what we actually get, I couldn’t care less about Winn and Lyra’s relationship, so it’s a little shocking that they’re such a huge focus. I won’t be sad if Lyra is really gone for good. Of course, shows on The CW can never keep characters in relationships very long, so not only is Winn/Lyra over, but – for now at least – Mon-El/Kara is over as well. That’s kind of a shame; Mon-El has gone from a side character I really didn’t care much about to one of my favorites on the series. The opposite has happened with Jimmy, who hasn’t been interesting since he became Guardian. Honestly, the show could lose his character with no ill effect whatsoever.

Sadly, I feel that this is one of the least-interesting and least-effective episodes of the entire series – that break-up scene between Kara and Mon-El (which I liked quite a bit) notwithstanding.

About Shannon Nutt

Shannon is the former Editorial Director for DVD Empire, a former staff reviewer for DVD Talk, and has spent over a decade reviewing and writing about DVD and Blu-ray online. A life-long movie buff, Shannon also holds a B.A. in History. When he isn't discussing movies, he loves debating politics and world events.

2 comments

The Winn and Lyra storyline in this episode was really painful. It was totally obvious from the second we found out that Lyra was a thief that she’d have some justifiable reason for doing it and would be redeemed by the end.

I wasn’t as bothered by the Mon-El storyline, except that Teri Hatcher needs to lay off the Botox. Her face has zero ability to produce any expressions.

Bryan

In reality, I think the whole reason we got the Winn/Lyra storyline was because they had to focus on someone other than Kara/Mon-El/J’ohnn (since they were all off filming the Flash episode while this episode was going on ….)

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